Jaguar Land Rover hack has cost UK economy £1.9bn, experts say
Cybersecurity body says more than 5,000 organisations affected in most costly cyber-attack to hit Britain
The hack of Jaguar Land Rover has cost the British economy an estimated £1.9bn and affected more than 5,000 organisations, a cybersecurity body has said.
A report by the Cyber Monitoring Centre (CMC) said losses could be higher if there were unexpected delays to the return to full production at the carmaker to levels before the hack took place in August.
“This incident appears to be the most economically damaging cyber event to hit the UK, with the vast majority of the financial impact being due to the loss of manufacturing output at JLR and its suppliers,” the report said.
The CMC is an independent non-profit organisation made up of industry specialists including the former head of Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre.
JLR, which is owned by India’s Tata Group, will report its financial results in November. A spokesperson for JLR declined to comment on the report.
The company started to resume manufacturing earlier this month after an almost six-week shutdown caused by the hack.
The luxury carmaker has three factories in Britain that together produce about 1,000 vehicles a day. The incident was one of several high-profile hacks to affect large UK companies this year. Marks & Spencer lost about £300m after a breach in April forced the retailer to suspend its online services for two months.
JLR, which analysts estimated was losing about £50m a week from the shutdown, was provided with a £1.5bn loan guarantee by the UK government in late September to help the carmaker support suppliers.
The CMC, which is funded by the insurance industry and categorises the financial impact of significant cybersecurity incidents affecting British businesses, ranked the JLR hack as a category 3 systemic event, out of a scale of five.
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The CMC’s estimate “reflects the substantial disruption to JLR’s manufacturing, to its multi-tier manufacturing supply chain, and to downstream organisations including dealerships”, the report said.